This upcoming weekend is Eternal Weekend in Philadelphia. For those of you who don't know, this is a special weekend for North American fans of eternal formats because it hosts two of the most prestigious Eternal tournaments of the year: The Vintage Championship and the Legacy Championship.

These events are unique because the winner receives a painting with re-imagined artwork for the cards Tundra and Mox Emerald. Any way you slice it these are pretty amazing trophies for any Eternal Champion to hang on their wall!

I will be at both of these events doing my best to hoist one of these trophies and would strongly encourage any fan of Eternal Magic to consider taking a road trip to play some Legacy and Vintage in the same weekend.

Eternal Finance

Getting to play in back to back Legacy and Vintage events may be great, but what does this weekend mean for the individuals who love the "game within the game" of trading and financing?

Let's examine the facts:

1. Eternal Weekend generates a lot of hype for Vintage and Legacy due to the coverage and the buzz it generates. In particular, the Vintage Championship is easily the highest-profile Vintage event each year in North America (arguably, the world) and generates more exposure for the event than any other singular thing.
2. Not only is the event a ton of fun for the people playing in it but more importantly for "professional traders" it looks like a ton of fun to people who are watching the stream from home. The best these formats have to offer is on full display, and people tuning in from home may be pushed over the edge to finally make the leap from Modern to Legacy or Legacy to Vintage. "Format looks awesome! I've wanted to play for a while... I'm going to jump in and next year I'll be at Eternal Weekend too!"
3. No matter what happens, eternal cards are significantly scarcer compared to demand and will always tend to be fairly safe investments. There are far worse things a trader can do than invest their trade stock or capital into Eternal staples.

Eternal staples always tend to be solid investments in the long term. They rarely go down unless they become obsolete, banned, or reprinted. And because the major decks tend to stay fairly consistent over time, these cards usually hit a slow boil where they consistently grow to maturity.

Five Specific Picks for Eternal Weekend

My strategy for MTG investing has and always will be to pick out cards that are undervalued at the moment. If you invest your resources into the cards that are too low to go down, in a worst case scenario you break even but far more often than not you will be making bank.

Let's start with a few spicy Vintage gems.

1. Kuldotha Forgemaster

Most people don't actually know this but the Kuldotha Forgemaster version of Mishra's Workshop decks far outperforms all other versions with regard to making Top 8s, and especially with regard to converting Top 8s into first place finishes. It is by far the most successful version of Mishra's Workshop in the past two years and is arguably the best deck in all of Vintage.

However, its flagship card is fairly inexpensive and hovers around a few dollars.

It is also significant that the card is quite good in the Legacy Metalworker MUD deck and a staple of every artifact-based Commander deck ever made. Both of these qualifications are very good for Forgemaster as a long-term speculation target. I also love the fact that the card sees no Modern play because it makes it unlikely to ever be reprinted in the Modern Masters series!

I also think that foil copies of this card are an easy pick-up in the $10-$15 range as they will clearly go up, likely significantly in the near future.

2. Oath of Druids

The next card I'd like to discuss is the flagship card of the second best, and second most popular, deck in all of Vintage, Oath of Druids. It turns out that paying two mana to make a Griselbrand on turn two is extremely powerful, even in a format where anything is possible...

The $5 price tag on this card is pretty much laughable, as the card is A) completely, absurdly overpowered, and B) old.

Another big selling point of this card is that it goes into the biggest "gateway" Vintage deck. What I mean by this is that people who are just starting out into Vintage have a very high probability of latching onto this deck because it is fairly cheap to assemble with proxies and is a busted combo deck. Considering that most Vintage tournaments allow 10-15 proxies it makes sense that Oath of Druids is one of the cards these players will definitely want to buy.

Also, the card is from a pretty bad set, which helps.

The big downside of the card is that it is banned in Legacy, but it does see a fair amount of play in Commander. It can't go less than $5 and I'm more than happy betting it goes up.

3. Terminus

Don't you love when the namesake card of the best deck in the format is just a tic away from being a bulk rare? Well, that is the case with this card.

Miracles is far and away the best deck in Legacy with regard to Top 8 performance and wins. It is plain and simple an awesome deck and one of the main reasons is the synergy between Sensei's Divining Top, Brainstorm and Terminus.

For everybody who didn't already know: one-mana instant speed Wrath of God is pretty good in any format. Basically, casting this card for its miracle cost is like playing a Yu-Gi-Oh! deck.

Once again, we have a card that is Eternal format defining as well as a staple card in every U/W Control Commander deck. The reprint did hold the value back a little bit but I think that trend will be bucked.

Another thing to consider is what happens to the price of Terminus if this card ever gets unbanned in Modern:

Not only would the price of Jace go completely berserk but Terminus would likely become an excellent card in Modern as well. While I'm not sure if I'd want to speculate on Jace, as it seems too high from the get go, I'm more willing to risk on Terminus.

I don't actually think that it would be unreasonable for Jace, the Mind Sculptor to be unbanned in Modern. For starters, I think the format is borderline too fast for him. Tapping out for a Jace against Affinity, Twin, or any other combo deck seems like suicide. The bigger problem is more likely the combo decks playing Jace themselves as a way to leverage card advantage against midrange black decks.

Nonetheless, I don't think it is out of the question that Jace could one day make a return to Modern. I have a few extra copies in addition to my playset tucked away just in case.

4. Young Pyromancer

I've written about this card as a speculation target before and it still hasn't moved on its four-dollar price tag, but I'm still resolute. The card is completely insane in Vintage, Legacy, and Modern and was only printed one time in a lame M-set.

There are other Modern-legal uncommons that are more expensive that this card and very few that see more play across other formats. The fact that this card didn't see a Modern Masters reprint is huge. I can very easily see it hitting Remand, Spell Snare or Might of Old Krosa status.

5. Dig Through Time

I think there is a realistic chance that Dig Through Time will win both the Vintage and Legacy Championship this year. The card has pretty clearly separated itself as the premier blue card draw/selection engine in every single format where it remains legal.

Overall, it is the best rare card in all of Khans block. Aside from this card getting banned in Legacy (and I think they would ban Sensei's Divining Top first) I think this card is a lock to continue to earn value as time goes on.

The Standard demand in the next year will grow this card in the short term but the long demand from Vintage and Legacy will keep the card afloat even after rotation.

It's also telling that the card never lost value (and actually went up) on TCG and SCG during the summer lull, in the same manner as fetchlands. Sellers were willing to lower prices on nearly every other Standard-legal card in order to continue doing high volume sales amid dwindling interest--but they were not willing to reduce their prices on fetches and Digs. This should tell you something as an investor.

~

I've given some specific examples and discussed the basic ways that I arrive at my conclusions, but investing in eternal cards isn't limited to just a few shiny specs. There are literally hundreds of solid eternal pick-up cards at the moment.

The key is that if you are trading away cards that are trending down for cards that are trending up you will always be in good shape. Any card that is old, does something awesome, and has a price tag that seems too low probably is too low and is worth trading for right now.

To all who are making the trip down to Eternal Weekend I wish you good luck in all of your Vintage and Legacy battles. If you see me down there, be sure to say "hi." And, to those of you hitting the trade tables this weekend you would be wise to keep Eternal on the brain and in your deals!